Have your expectations of the future always been unrealistic?

No. I have more then I ever imagined, and I am happier in my marriage than I ever thought I would be. The only thing that I did not expect was being ill at a young age, and continuing to have health problems for so many years.

Yes.

Only in the short term. In the long term things tend to work out and you end up happier than before. Or if not exactly happier, then… more peaceful, more stable. In the short term, every let down feels like the end of the world. Every break-up or missed promotion or whatever… but then if you look at it from years down the road, it doesn’t seem like anything.

Even if you didn’t accomplish what you dreamed of, there’s always some way to be happy. It’s just not always what you expected it to be.

Oh, you mean personal future (here I was about to go into a transhumanist rant).

No.

My friend, you are talking about the lies of the new generation. We had television to tell us for years that life is a game, pleasant and will always end with joy and the guy getting the girl. Sadly it is not true…all the time. Yes, life can be swell, but it can hurt like a beast as well.

Always. It only becomes unrealistic when the future becomes the now.

Everyone has high expectations.

What is the point of living without high expectations?

I don’t know yet.

Nothing is “real” until it is experienced, so on that basis, yes, everything I have thought about the future is unrealistic.

hmm interesting….I find past and future a bit hard to think about…I am not sure I really imagine what it will be like at all really…do you mean like thinking about what the possibilities are? or what is likely to happen? I find it really hard to visualise the future at all theres just too many variables

Well, I am leaving for Africa in a few months…never thought I’d go there…ever.